Kent Hughes rejects major trade as the rumors come to an end: it involves Ivan Demidov's friend

Ivan Demidov spent part of his summer turning Montreal into a classroom for Canadiens prospect Alexander Zharovsky.

In a post shared Monday, the /r/Habs account relayed comments from Zharovsky describing exactly how that worked.

"Ivan put me up, kept showing me around, and fed me," Zharovsky said. "We trained together and spent time together."

Demidov and Zharovsky grew up together, and now one of them is a full-blown NHL weapon while the other is still fighting for a foothold in the organization.

That gap didn't stop the two from training side by side all summer, with Demidov opening his own place to a guy still climbing the same ladder he just cleared.

It's the hockey version of a star student tutoring the kid two grades below. Nobody makes him do it. He just does.

Demidov isn't some fringe roster piece doing a favor for old times' sake, either. He just put up 62 points in 82 games as a rookie, tacking on 19 goals and 43 assists while playing on Montreal's power play.

Demidov's rookie breakout raises the stakes for Zharovsky's path

He kept producing when it mattered most too, picking up 9 points in 19 playoff games as the Canadiens pushed deep into the postseason.

And he's doing all of it on a cap hit of just $940,833, which is the kind of value every front office dreams about landing on an entry-level deal.

Kent Hughes and Martin St-Louis have built a Canadiens core that's suddenly stacked with cheap, ascending talent, and Demidov is the headline example.

So when a player like that decides to spend his summer mentoring a fellow prospect instead of disappearing to a beach somewhere, that says something about the room Montreal is building.

Is it going to fast-track Zharovsky's timeline? Nobody can promise that off a few weeks of skating together in July.

But bonds like this tend to matter once training camp opens and a young player is looking for one familiar face in a crowded locker room.

Montreal finished 48-24-10 with 106 points, good for sixth in the league overall, and depth pieces who feel comfortable in that room have a way of sticking.

Zharovsky still has to earn his opportunity on the ice, not in a group chat with Demidov. But he's not walking into Montreal as a total stranger anymore, and that's not nothing.